Keelhaul are awesome, saw them play here in Dublin earlier this year and they put on a kick-ass show. Also I gave their most recent album by number one in the year-end metal poll here a couple of years ago.

As for stuff not mentioned here yet, Cable's 'Northern Failures' is good stuff.

I didn't look at the other thread yet, sorry. You're right, though, Inalienable Dreamless is unbeatable. Fucking hell, the Agoraphobic Nosebleed PCP Torpedo is killer, too. And the Atom/Phantomsmasher stuff is some of the wackiest music ever, although I'm not sure it's worth searching out.

in a way, them becoming a 'big' label in indie metal terms around the middle of the 00s might have been a millstone for them. like, they were obliged to operate as a pro business w/ employees etc since, but at this point idk if they have any bands with a hope of selling more than a few thousand copies

I just tried to order their big pack through Real Tomato Ketchup and remembered why I stopped ordering from them. SEVENTY TWO DOLLARS POSTAGE. Plus Aaron always puts the full amount on the postage label - a couple of cds and a shirt suddenly starting costing me an extra $25 in UK customs/VAT, so this $100 package would end up costing me at least $330.

Krakow has a similar story about trying to buy Circle shirts in bulk for his NWOFHM store.

Cool! Yeah, it was just that I was going to have to buy a large number of ridiculously expensive t-shirts myself that no-one would ever buy from me (though HH have all but sold out themselves now that I look). I ended up feeling too tired of the whole endeavour to sort it out. Sorry.

As regards Supersonic, I'm there Saturday & Sunday this year, just booked my trains last night.

Yeah, this wasn't really a surprise to me. They haven't been relevant for a while now IMO... the best thing about them has always been how consistently brave they were. They'd release a bunch of safe stuff like Cave In or Pelican which would sell decently and then they'd put out something totally left-field like that Craw record which absolutely kills... but you know it'd only sell like 100 copies and is a total loss.

I'll always be forever thankful they did release that niche stuff!! I guess we'll never get any more new Craw, Harkonen, Cavity, Austerity Program, Keelhaul and Knut records now which is a huge shame.

(although you could say that about the great majority of notable independent labels - they had acts that sold a lot more than the rest, and in doing so funded acts that were more of a gamble financially)

Well, I was exaggerating a little! And I'm sure just being on HH gave Craw and the lower profile bands a certain added cachet. I know that Craw record in particular has gained in popularity as time passes. I guess it's really just my perspective. Everyone I used to know who listened to this type of stuff would have We Are The Romans and Jupiter in their collection but it seemed like I was the only one buying things like On The Lam and Challenger.

And DJ Mencap, your point is good, all labels do this subsidizing and HH certainly had tons of other risky one off things that I wasn't interested in like Logh and Mare or whatever. Hydrahead just seemed super consistent about it, even in recent years (a Circle record!!!) so it always stood out to me.